What if we stopped screening?
 

I've spent the past few hours browsing through the archives of this forum and some of the comments flat our amaze me. It would appear that some of you would prefer no screening at all.

Let me ask you this. If we would stop screening, how long do you think it would be until the first incident? It would be a field day for terrorists and nut jobs alike. How would you feel about flying on an unscreened plane? How would you feel if you and your family lived under the flight patterns of unscreened planes? How would you feel about dropping off your son or daughter for a flight on their unscreened plane?

So my point is, for those of you that think we're a joke, you need to wake up. We may have some strange policies and you may feel violated or inconvinced, but without us, it would be chaos. If you don't see it that way, you're blind.

I guess I'm blind!

Bruce

Okay, here's my try at explaining my position using un-emotional language:

Airport screening provides very little in the way of security, as has been documented repeatedly both by the GAO report, congressional inquiries, and infamous incidents like Nathan Heatwole sneaking box cutters onto planes and telling the TSA about it only to have them ignore his message and discover the weapons by chance several weeks later.

Airport screening also spends a large amount of money that could be spent more broadly to investigate all possible targets of terrorism, such as the alleged plot we've just heard about to bomb a mall. Clearly terrorists have interest in targets other than airplanes, and even the targets in the infamous incident were not airplanes but office buildings.

However, the newly invasive airport screening does provide a major disincentive to flying, not the least by pushing up ticket prices, in an environment where airlines are already struggling. It also puts travelers at risk of having their belongings stolen, mishandled, or broken, and of having their bodies touched in inappropriate ways. The statistics on complaints about the above mentioned issues with luggage and inappropriate touching are available at: http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/index.htm

For all of these reasons and more, I and many others on this board think that screening should become much less invasive, which should also cost less and free up money for pursuing terrorists.

As to the question of eliminating screening altogether, I'd like that, but I won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so I'll settle for going back to the much less invasive screening process.

Stop Screening NO Better Screening YES
 

John, may I call you that ?
I have not spent hours looking through the posts as you have, but from my prespective I would like to see better screening and have some of the sillyness taken away. I am in a airport going through screening 4 out of 5 days a week, and for the most part I do not mind. It is my belief that if we remove the nonsense from the screening and selection process most of these posts will stop (even form me).

How do you suggest we be much less invasive? In an earlier thread, you stated that you didn't want us patting down breasts. If we're not going to check things like that, we may as well not check at all.

So what kind of nonsense are you speaking of? I may agree with you on some of them, but I'm not sure what they are.

If your training is so poor that you need to pat down breasts to determine the difference between an underwire bra and a gun/knife, then your agency is a joke.

I am NOT blind, I am a Security Professional with over 20 years experience in the Security Industry. That is 20 years more then any of the former Coast Guard employees masquarading as TSA leaders.

If there is anyone here looking for no screening, I have yet to identify them. What I am looking for is intelligent screening. In my eye, intelligent screening is looking for credible threats.

Face it, the TSA is a joke. The TSA has done and more than likely will never do a better job than the previous screening companies. The only difference between the TSA and the private companies is 100,000 overpaid government employees.

We've been through this a million times already. Two things happened very soon after 9/11/01:

1. Protocols were changed so that flight crews no longer cooperate with hijackers. They are to put the plane on the ground pronto! Terrorists know this, of course.

2. Cockpit doors were made bullet- and bomb-proof. Those doors are close to indestructible now with anything that could be carried on a plane. So who cares if a passenger has scissors or something like that? They can't take control, so leave them alone!

TSA has never caught a terrorist and likely never will. But we spend BILLIONS of tax dollars on totally unnecessary screening, looking for tiny pointed things that are essentially harmless. It's all theater, and I'm tired of it.

Bruce

I'm getting the predictable responses I expected.

Sad.

How is it sad?

Instead of attacking us for knowing that the TSA provides no credible safety, how about telling us how exactly the TSA has improved screening?

What if we stopped screening?

I suppose at that point, airplanes would be more or less the same as trains, busses, subways, restaurants, office buildings, sporting events, or anything else where large numbers of people gather without being screened.

Now that cockpit doors are reinforced, it will be pretty hard for someone to use an airplane as a missile -- which makes it simply another place where civilians gather.

1) Elimination of "joke" or "novelty" screening like what is currently happening at the checkpoint does not mean elimination of all screening.

2) Do a search. I have posted my solutions using better technology that is available and proven to work, such as the Sentinel II.

Many others have also weighed in on what they would do differently. USE THE SEARCH FEATURE. The reason you're not getting the specific answers you crave is because no one wants to type them in for the twentieth time, not because no solution is offered!

Please don't see this as a tantrum, but I'm out of here. I'm already spending more time reading and posting than I should, plus I'm getting angry. Like I said earlier, I deal with enough of this while I'm at work, so why am I subjecting myself to this on my off time? Am I crazy?

Goodbye & thanks for chatting.

TSAJohn

Laziness at its finest.

You didn't get what you wanted and/or you didn't like the criticism you received for asking a question that has been asked hundreds of times and answered hundreds of times too. Even though the answers may be available with a search, you're out of here.

I do hope those guns and bombs present themselves more easily....

Buh-Bye. Your agency is run by dumbasses, and far too many of its line employees are none too bright either. Why not try to correct that problem instead of lecturing the non-terrorists??